Old War Quirks
by Flawless Beauti
Summary: [HPHGDM] Harry is like a squirrel, Draco is like a house-elf and Hermione hoards maps. Hermione supposes all the war survivors have odd quirks they must deal with.


The first time Hermione wakes with cold sheets, she is miffed. She is not fond of the cold, and even less fond of waking up alone. She doesn't admit she is a bit worried, since she usually wakes up first, but she dismisses it.

Perhaps an emergency called Draco back to the hospital, and Harry could easily be in the kitchen. She tosses her clothes into the laundry and turns on the shower, letting the water warm as she strides naked down the hallway to the linen room. The door is cracked and she frowns, pulling it open and staring dumbstruck into the bottom.

Harry has created a nest in the bottom of their linen closet. Hermione repeats this to herself, eyeing the tattered towels and spare sheets and clothes she had sworn she threw out. He is nestled in them, knees drawn to his chest and Draco is wrapped around him and leaning halfway on the wall.

_It can't be comfortable_, she thinks to herself, reaching over them to snag the required towel. _We'll discuss it when I get home from work. _They don't, however, because when she gets home from work Draco takes her aside.

"It's been going on for almost a week," he says quietly, staring at the bookshelf as Harry putters around the kitchen."He thrashes around the bed for a bit and wakes up and stumbles to the closet. Sometimes he cries."

Hermione makes a soft noise in her throat, and Draco glances at her out of the corner of his eye. "I understand," she says softly in response to his questioning look, and he nods in reply even as he pulls a book off the shelf. "I thought you might."

At dinner Hermione and Draco are the epitome of perfection, making Harry laugh and blush throughout the meal. The next morning Hermione wakes to warmth and too little space, and she takes a moment to bask as her heart clenches slightly at the thought that tomorrow could be different.

She understands though, which is why the next week they all three curl up in a nest of old clothes in the bottom of a closet, and in the morning if everyone is a bit more tired and the touches are a bit softer nobody says a word.

* * *

When Harry hollers through the house inquiring after his missing green tie Hermione notices how Draco tenses up, but she says nothing and calls back _I have no idea, and the blue one will go better anyways. _When her favorite hairband is no longer hanging on the bathroom handle she doesn't mention it either, and pulls up her hair with a simple black one that pulls her hair a bit when she removes it in the morning.

In a few days the missing things will be back, she knows, and other things will eventually vanish in their place. They can see it coming; after four years you pick up on things like that. Harry will catch her eye at the dinner table and casually tilt his head to Draco, who stares at his food as he eats and shifts his legs under the table.

That night the sex will be rougher than usual, and usually Hermione will end up spreading salve on all three of them before they sleep. In the morning, something will be gone from each of them.

Hermione has her ideas as to why it happens, but she never says anything aloud. When they accidently-on-purpose find his hiding spot Harry mutters he is like a house elf, and while Hermione glares and smacks him she can't help but agree. She knows how hard things were for Draco after the war; what Lucius didn't taint in memory the Ministry took in compensation.

He had nothing left for the longest time, and even now he brings home stupid trinkets that are slowly filling the various shelves that are all around the flat. She supposes that's why some days he takes their things as well. He is afraid of waking up and everything being gone. Or perhaps of something happening to them and he has to leave and she _knows _beyond a shadow of a doubt he would never recover if they were to leave him.

Not that they plan on it, of course. He doesn't always know that and collecting her things to keep [when he says sometimes and she glares her hurt as he looks vaguely ashamed] if they leave him if nothing more than a mild annoyance to her and it makes him calmer and safer and it grounds him in a way she understands.

Still, when her favorite green silk robe is gone from her drawer, she can't help shooting him a dark glare, and she is pleased when he ducks his head as red blooms down the back of his neck.

* * *

The first time Harry steps into the library, his mouth falls open. Hermione feels steady warmth rising from her chest to her cheeks and she knows her face is aflame with humiliation at what he sees. He closes his mouth at last and the knowing look in his eyes seems worse than the astonishment.

Beyond her Draco makes a biting comment about Harry and books and he wanders over there, leaving Hermione to stand in the middle of the room with a book clutched to her chest and fighting down the embarrassment. It was easier when Draco walked in. He had done nothing more than raise an eyebrow and ask to borrow _101 Ways Household Charms Are Useful in the Real World._

The next day large boxes had appeared in the library, and tears pricked her eyes at the glass display cases he had bought. When she went to him he had rolled his eyes and commented something about _Granger _and _going to drown us all _but he had squeezed her shoulder as he walked past and nothing else had been said.

She knows it is a problem, the same way Draco steals their things and Harry spends most nights like a squirrel in the towel cabinet. The scrolls of parchment in her library outnumber the books, and even with the cases they are starting to pile up.

Before the Final Battle, when everything was almost ready and they were planning for the Last Assault their safe house had been compromised. The only warning was the shrill ringing of the wards and they had been lucky they were all in the library in the first place.

Harry had snatched the knapsack he carried with him at all times, Ron had pulled the book to reveal the escape route and they were gone from the cottage down the slide and dumped into the woods.

They walked for days with no real direction besides North, hunting off the land and creeping more often than not. They spent over a month in those woods, and years later Hermione could still remember the fear of aimless wandering.

She never did quite forgive herself for not grabbing the map that they had been studying when the wards were breached; regardless of Harry telling her there had been no time. She could have made time, she responded, until he stopped saying it at all. To her, that missing map represented that month spent lost and doing nothing while people died.

Now, she has a map for every place on earth. She owns blueprints of Gringotts [though she remains tight lipped of how she got them], plans of houses that do not belong to her and maps of every bit of land in between.

From floor to ceiling the wallpaper is unfurled maps, and others rest on top of bookshelves and under glass until it becomes unorganized piles to everyone but her. She knows it is silly to be embarrassed around them, but still her face burns.

Harry places a finger under her chin and draws her into a slow kiss as Draco lets down her hair and kisses her neck. She ruefully says goodbye to her hair tie for the next few days and wonders if all the war survivors have to deal with odd quirks like they have, and then she loses herself in their heated mouths and soft hands.

* * *

**A/N: There are, in my opinion, far too few Harry/Draco/Hermione stories. As this is currently my obsession [and I can barely find any] I've been writing them. How this came about is anybody's guess, but it was something short and sweet. I glanced through it, but if you see any mistakes let me know.**


End file.
